To the Very End
by AureliaAndMidnight
Summary: Oneshot. In which Draco Malfoy realizes that cowardice has stopped being an option.
1. Chapter 1

Tracey Davis, a halfblood who had been sorted into Slytherin. For his first three years of Hogwarts, Draco was only peripherally aware that she existed. Halfblood. Beneath his notice. Average and boring in every way.

It was in fourth year, when there was no Quidditch to distract him and his main gripe was Potter being part of the blasted tournament and _the goddamn defense teacher, _when he saw her in the corner of the library crying her eyes out.

"Davis?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. Sure, he didn't know her, but Slytherins took care of their own—even if it was just to preserve their image as the cold-hearted bastards of Hogwarts.

She raised her head, dark blue eyes bright with tears. She squinted. "Malfoy?"

He tilted his head imperiously, then hesitated. "Need anything?" he asked.

"McLaggen's head on a pike," she sniffed, and crossed her arms over her chest.

Draco laughed. "That could be arranged," he pointed out, and Davis—because she had been Davis then, not Tracey, not _yet_—let this little crooked smile onto her face.

There was something about that smile. It pulled up a little more on the right side than it did on the left, and Draco saw that she had dimples. He had never noticed.

"What did he do?" he couldn't help but ask.

Davis' smile slipped off her face, and Draco ruthlessly crushed the disappointment that rose in his chest. "Said some things," she said vaguely.

"Things?"

"Things," Davis confirmed darkly, and adjusted the way the fabric of her skirt fell over her knees.

Draco nodded. "Do you want me to get Greengrass?" he asked.

Davis shook her head. "I'm okay," she said, and Draco gave her one last look before he left the library.

When McLaggen was found in one of the hallways hexed six ways to Sunday, Davis shot Draco a smile when she passed him in the halls. It was a knowing smile, not the crooked kind of smile, but it was _something_. Draco just didn't know what at the time.

* * *

"Oi, Malfoy!"

Draco turned around in his seat on the bleachers. Ravenclaw was playing Gryffindor and he had decided to wear a dark blue cloak to show his support, however subtly.

Davis was sitting above him next to Greengrass, wearing a blue and black striped scarf. "Ravenclaw?" she asked.

Draco scoffed. "Obviously."

"Come sit with us," she said, and held up a rolled up poster. "Daph and I can't hold this by ourselves."

Draco glanced at Greg and Vince, their own beady eyes fixed on the game and their hands stuffed into a bag of crisps. Pansy was clinging onto Zabini and from his pained expression, she had dug her nails into his bicep in such a way that detaching her was more effort than it was worth.

Making a snap decision, Draco got up, made his way up the stands, and sat beside Davis. "What does the poster say?" he asked.

"It's just a picture of an eagle," Davis replied with a shrug, "it was short notice."

Draco snorted. "I could animate it," he offered, and the small smile on her face grew into a full blown grin.

Greengrass laughed and tossed her white-blond hair, similar enough to Draco's own that he could almost see his family tree—cousins, a few times removed, but linked through their Rosier heritage two generations back. "I hope they win," she said fervently, "It would put Gryffindor almost out of the running for the Quidditch Cup this year."

"So do I," he admitted. Together, they unrolled the poster and Draco muttered a moving-picture spell over it, one he had learned while looking through his father's charms texts. The eagle flapped its wings once, twice, then opened its beak in a screech that surely would've been ear-piercing, had it been alive. The three of them held up the poster and waved it wildly whenever Ravenclaw scored a goal. In the end, Gryffindor won, but by such a small margin that neither were completely out of the running yet.

Draco muttered a curse on the existence of lions and Tracey, having heard it, let out a loud laugh. It was so different from Pansy's simpering giggle that he looked at her, taken aback.

Her mouth was stretched wide in a grin and her eyes, a pale green, were sparkling in the late afternoon light.

Beautiful, he found himself thinking, and was further taken aback when he realized that it wasn't an entirely unwelcome thought.

* * *

There was no extended courtship period, no awkward first date at Hogsmeade. Not when the threat of the Dark Lord was hanging over them, and not when Draco was a pureblood heir to a noble house. Not when Tracey was a halfblood.

Their first kiss was underneath mistletoe at Christmas in the common room, but when everyone had gone to sleep. They only ever got to hold hands when Tracey was dragging him through empty hallways or Draco was tugging her into abandoned classrooms. It bothered him, the secrecy. But he would rather sneak around after hours to spend time with her than expose her to danger.

He was worried, so worried, about what would happen to her. But he tried his best to forget that there was war looming on the horizon and to lose himself in her.

* * *

The night that Draco joined the DA, he hadn't planned to. He had been walking around the dark corridors of the school, uncaring if he was caught by the prefects, when someone grabbed his arm. He was pulled unceremoniously into an unused classroom. The hand let go of his arm as soon as the door shut behind him, and he locked eyes with his captor. It was Saint Potter, of all people, peering owlishly at him through his ridiculous black spectacles.

"Potter, what—"

"I need your help."

Draco was utterly gobsmacked. "My help?" he sneered reflexively. "And why would I ever help you?"

"Because if you don't, Voldemort will win."

Draco gave a full-body shudder at the name, then immediately narrowed his eyes at the other boy. "Don't say the name," he hissed.

"Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself," Potter replied, sounding as if he was quoting something. Or someone, probably, because knowing Potter, he was just repeating the headmaster's drivel.

"You would be a fool," Draco muttered, "not to fear the Dark Lord."

He expected a typically Gryffindor response. Perhaps a cocky grin or arrogant bluster. What he got instead was something uncharacteristically honest.

"I fear him," Potter confided, his voice quieter, as if he was ashamed. "I fear him, but I refuse to let that hold me back."

There was an awkward pause which quickly became unbearable.

Draco raised an eyebrow in an attempt to break the tension. "Does that have anything to do as to why you've molested my person by dragging me into a classroom in the dark of night? I know I'm irresistible, Potter, but this is bold, even for you," he said flippantly.

Potter startled him again by laughing. "I really do need your help."

"For what, to kill Voldemort?" Draco snorted. "For your precious headmaster? Because if that's why, I'm going to leave this classroom right now, prefects be damned." Really, he wasn't sure why he was still there, talking to Potter almost _civilly_, of all things.

"Not for the headmaster."

Draco raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.

"For yourself, and for the rest of the Slytherins," Potter told him. Draco let out a dry laugh in response. "I'm not sure if you've noticed," he said bitterly, "but the entirety of Slytherin house backs the Dark Lord. We're all spineless and evil, you know."

"Not the entirety," Potter said softly. "There are halfbloods in your house. There are purebloods who have been neutral since the last war. Slytherin house is divided, and when Voldemort takes over, you will _fall_."

"As if I care about them," Draco scoffed. "The Malfoys will be the right hand of the Dark Lord when he wins."

"You care," Potter said, a smug smile sneaking onto his face. "I know you do. Tracey Davis, was it? I saw you with her yesterday. Does the back of the library ring any bells?"

Draco stiffened. He could've sworn nobody was there. He had checked, Trace had checked, oh _Merlin_.

"If this is your pathetic attempt to blackmail me, it's not going to work," he said, his voice flat.

"She's a halfblood," Potter said conversationally.

"Since when did that matter to you?" he replied, backing up a step. His right hand, however involuntarily, brushed the handle of his wand.

"Relax. It doesn't, and your secret's safe with me. What I'm trying to say is, you don't want him to win."

"Of course I want him to win."

"You don't," said Potter, his kind expression almost pitying. Draco hated it. "Because under his regime, what would happen to Tracey?"

"She'd be fine," Draco shot back.

Potter only looked at him, expression unreadable, before Draco let himself slump. There was an unbearable weight in Potter's face, a dreadful sort of understanding that the blonde could not bear. "She'd be fine," he repeated.

She wouldn't be fine. At best, she'd be a second-class citizen. They'd never be allowed to be together. Not when he would be made to marry some pureblood heiress like Pansy. And though he loved her in his own way, it wasn't like that between them.

The one woman he had ever loved, and at worst she would be killed for her parentage. The thought felt like a lead weight in his chest.

Potter leaned back into the desk behind him. "Yes, Draco. She'll be fine the way Hermione would be fine, the way Ron would be fine. The way anyone who can't trace their lineage back fifty generations will be fine."

Draco grit his teeth. "Your point, Potter?"

"My point is, we could use a guy like you. A man on the inside."

"You want me to spy for you," Draco muttered. "But what does it matter? I'm a tool whichever side I chose."

"That's the difference, isn't it?" Potter asked, an infuriating twinkle in his eyes. "You could choose."

And that was the difference, really. The choice. Because he knew he could walk away that night, pretend that Potter had never made him a proposition that could alter the course of the coming war, and no one would ever be the wiser.

Tracey. The freedom to choose, and the ability to save her, is what tipped his hand.

"Are you with us?" Potter asked, watching the man who had been his enemy since they were eleven. Draco pressed his lips together and clasped Potter's forearm in an old-fashioned, utterly pureblood expression of trust. "To the very end," he said firmly.

"What end, though?" Potter's smile was wild and crooked as he gripped Draco's forearm in return.

"The death of V-Voldemort," he replied, proud that he only stuttered once, "and the dissolution of the Death Eaters."

The other boy's grin seemed to get impossibly wider. "To the very end," he echoed. However involuntary, a smile spread across Draco's face.

A/N: I know, I know. I should be working on IMR. But the whole "love redeems the bad guy" trope is one of my favorites.


	2. Chapter 2

It was over. Potter had done it, pulled the impossible out of a dreadful situation and somehow, Voldemort was dead. People celebrated openly in the streets, flouting the Statute of Secrecy, but Draco couldn't bring himself to care about Ministry bullshit because _oh, Merlin, they found her. _

He'd thought that she'd be alright, going back to Hogwarts for that final year. She was a halfblood but she was also Slytherin, she was part of their House which had meant something. Or so he had thought, until he received one last, frantic letter from her.

Dated January 8, and that was seared into Draco's brain. Every word of it was permanently burned into the back of his eyelids so that it was what he fell asleep to, every single night. It might have driven him insane. Or maybe it kept him sane, repeating her words over and over again. It kept him fighting and got him up on the mornings where everything seemed hopeless.

_January 8_

_Draco,_

_They're taking me away somewhere. I'm not supposed to know, not when I was only just warned yesterday because Ginny overheard the Carrows talking. I just know that I'm going to be taken, and I just wanted to let you know. Don't risk anything in trying to get me out, it's not worth it, I'll be fine...and I know that you're probably worried out of your mind by no, reading this, because by the time Pansy gets this to you I will be long gone. And I needed to let you know. I love you, so much that it hurts sometimes, and the fact that I'm being taken away makes it worse. _

_But I'll come out the other end just fine. You know me, Draco. I always do. _

_You're wondering why I'm not holed up with the others, safe as they are. Why they could slip away when I know I cannot. _

_I'm being watched. Constantly, and I can't tell by whom. But I am, and the feeling never goes away, even when I'm in bed or in the shower, so I know that they've found a way to keep an eye on me always. Writing this is even a risk. Which is why I won't let myself lead them to the others. I won't, I won't, I _won't_. But I will write this letter. They cannot take you away from me. Even if...even if I don't make it out the other end, they can't take you away from me. You're always in my heart, Drake. Stay safe for me, and win the war so I can come home, okay?_

_Love,_

_Tracey_

January ninth, they had taken her away—and to where, he didn't know. January tenth, Pansy had sent him the letter. Due to her precariously prestigious position as probably the most trusted student among Slytherin, she could afford to. Her letters weren't suspicious anymore. And so he had gotten the letter, taking it from Pansy's owl, and read it in the privacy of his room.

He still remembered the aching, gaping wound in his chest that opened up as he read. He still remembered the tears dripping down his face after he finished reading, after he folded it up carefully and tucked it into the very bottom of his trunk after spelling it so only he could unfold the paper. Tracey was _gone_, somewhere he couldn't reach.

Draco tried, though. He contacted every member of Harry's intelligence network he was given access to, probed for information from every lucid Death Eater, kept an ear to the ground for any rumors..but it was like Tracey Davis had disappeared into thin air.

When the war was over and done with, when Harry was hailed as the conquering hero who defeated the Dark Lord not once, but twice, the news had come in. A Death Eater stronghold, previously unknown, raided by Ministry Aurors. They'd found prisoners, so many of them. Muggleborns and halfbloods all.

Tracey was among them, but it got worse. So much worse.

Because Dolohov had wondered—how many times can you Obliviate someone? Infinitely many, says logic, but how many times until the r?

According to the files seized by the Ministry, 43 times within two weeks would do the trick.

* * *

He let out a breath when he saw her, lying in a hospital bed. She was so thin and frail, her skin stretched like paper over her bones. Tracey had never been an overly plump girl, but seeing her reduced to a wraith made something in Draco's chest fracture a little.

The healer gave him a considering look before leaving him alone with her. His actions on behalf of the Light had been revealed soon after news of Voldemort's death made headlines, but some were still wary of him. As they should be. He was _dangerous_, after all. The son of a Death Eater and a sympathizer who had probably done unspeakable things to maintain his cover.

He glanced upwards. Anything to avoid looking directly at her, long limbs spread over her cot like a starfish and eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. The ceiling was an off-white, perfectly normal, perfectly boring. The air smelled faintly of water lilies and the temperature was cool. He then glanced out of the window to see the busy London street. Muggles walked by and their strange automobiles puttered along the road. It was foggy out and he imagined that it must smell like smog out there.

"Hello."

Draco couldn't hide his instinctive flinch at her voice. She didn't sound like herself, all monotone and flat and dull. Like the ceiling. Tracey sounded like the ceiling. He wanted to laugh.

"Do I know you?"

He took the words stoically, though they felt like a blow to the chest, and finally looked at her. She was staring at him with those wide blue eyes he had fallen in love with so long ago in the Hogwarts library, no recognition in her gaze at all.

"No," he said, though it took great effort. "I don't think you do."

She considered this for a moment, studying him. "Do you know me?" she asked then, her lips turning downwards. "There seem to be an awful lot of people who know me but who I don't know at all."

"Yes," said Draco, and choked a little.

Tracey nodded, because she probably expected that, and pushed herself up a little. She sat with her back supported by the wall and one pale hand resting in her lap. "Sit," she said.

He sat.

"What's your name, then?" she asked.

"Malfoy. Draco Malfoy," he said to her then, drinking in her face. She may not remember him, but she's _whole_, he reminded himself. She's _alive_.

Tracey giggled, sounding for a brief, agonizing moment, like her old self. "Bond," she said, "James Bond."

He lifted an eyebrow at her. "Pardon?"

She opened her mouth to reply before snapping it shut and closing her eyes, as if in pain. "I can't remember," she replied, her voice hoarse. "I can't...I can't…"

Draco reached out and took one of her clenched hands in his own, moving as if on instinct. "You don't need to," he said, panicking. "If it hurts, stop."

She took a deep breath before opening her eyes again. "I'm sorry," she muttered. He shakes his head. "Don't be. It's not your fault."

Her eyes ran up and down his face. "I should know you," she whispered, clenching her fist tighter. "I should know who you are."

Draco weighed the benefits of what he was about to say. "I'm yours," he suddenly found himself saying, and when she looked as if she had been punched in the gut he immediately regretted it.

"I see," she said coolly, with the sort of detachment one reserved for specimens under a microscope. Draco hated it, half because he knew he'd overstepped and half because it was a tone she had never directed at him before.

"I'm sorry," he tried, and Tracey shrugged. "Think nothing of it," she replied, and shrugged. "The mediwizards are going to try some things on me that they do for trauma patients and people who've been Obliviated and Confunded too often. 43 is a record, though. Apparently most people die by then."

"You're not most people," Draco replied, pressing his lips together tightly. She smiled weakly at him. "I gathered."

She then looked very tired and Draco excused himself with a promise he'd visit another day, perhaps when she was better rested, and she nodded quietly as he left. He felt cold, and empty, as he exited the hospital room.

He walked the corridors and stairs down to the entrance in a daze, passing more people who had been casualties of the war. The wing where victims of dark magic were treated was full to bursting with healers rushing around frantically and patients, and the smell of blood and potions hung heavy in the air. There were enough that they'd spilled out into the hallway, and all the doors were open to allow ease of movement. He watched as a middle-aged man stoically had horrific burns across the left side of his chest treated and as a young girl, no older than ten, sat with a blank look on her face. She was missing her left arm.

Looking around, Draco realized just how understaffed and unequipped St Mungo's was for the recent influx of Death Eater prisoners, on top of those caught in the crossfire in the last few battles of the war. He also realized something else.

Potter's ridiculous saving people instinct had managed to rub off on him, because of course it had. And it wasn't like he had anything to do that afternoon anyway.

He stopped one of the nearest healers, a woman with mousy hair pulled into a strict bun. She had armfuls of gauze and had a pinched, overworked look to her face. "What," she snapped.

"I can help," he said, his own face set. "I learned healing from Madam Pomfrey at Hogwarts and I've been fixing people up during the war."

The woman looked him up and down, taking in his grey slacks and shined shoes and frowned at him dubiously. "Medical license?" she asked.

"Only apprentice level," he admitted, "but I have experience with dark curses."

She looked him up and down again, finally seeming to notice the distinctive blonde hair and grey eyes. The healer let out a long sigh. "Right, Pomona mentioned you. I can put you to work with the less esoteric cases," she said, and pointed to a closet. "Extra mediwizard robes are in there."

She then scribed a quick note with a quill and piece of parchment from her pocket. "Give this to Barnes," she ordered, "one floor below. He'll direct you to cases you're qualified for. Tell him Emilia sent you."

Draco nodded, feeling slightly overwhelmed. He grabbed a set of healer's robes from the closet and found Barnes after many inquiries to other harried healers. Barnes had greying hair and a bushy beard and was dithering over potion bottles. "What," he snapped when Draco prodded him.

"Emilia sent me," he reported dutifully, and handed Barnes the scrap of parchment. The wizard scanned it quickly and huffed. "We do need the extra hands," he muttered, and pointed Draco to a set of rooms off the second floor hallway. "We have the lower priority patients there. Potion cabinet on the wall, as well as this one. Ask someone if you need help or if you don't know how to treat something. _Do not fuck someone up_."

Draco nodded and went into the room. Inside were rows of beds, each with a person in them. He stopped at the first one and checked their chart, as Madam Pomfrey had always told him to do first. No use in wasting energy on detection spells if someone had already done them, after all.

He frowned at the paper. Nobody had come to see this person yet, just shuttled them off to this room after ascertaining that they weren't bleeding from the ears or anything serious like that. He walked to the patient's bedside. The young woman lying in the bed was awake, but her stare was unfocused. "Hello," he greeted pleasantly. The woman turned her head to him. "What's your name, and do you have any idea of what happened to you?"

"Rebecca Jant," she whispered. Her voice was hoarse. "I got smacked around a lot."

Draco nodded. "I'm Draco," he said, and when her unfocused eyes showed no recognition, he proceeded to whip out a net of detection and diagnosis spells. He read off the results, a frown on his face. She had a severe concussion and two cracked ribs, and a fracture in her left wrist. Quietly, Draco took the requisite potions off the wall and fed them to her, carefully making sure she drank them all. He instructed her to rest and make minimal movement.

Then he moved onto the second patient and repeated the exercise. Timothy Laurel had a dislocated shoulder and was severely malnourished. The next, Anthony Sauderdell, suffered from a respiratory infection made all the worse by his bruised ribs. And on and on it went. Draco lost himself in the monotony of diagnoses, feeding potions, the occasional spell, and binding up wounds. It would be long past sunset when he was found by another mediwitch and told his shift was over and he could leave.

He went home in a daze and promised himself to come back tomorrow, sign in properly this time and everything.

A/N Originally, I was going to leave this as a oneshot. However, enough people were intrigued by this admittedly _very _rare ship that I've decided, what with all the free time I've found myself with, I could write a bit more. To be continued :)


	3. temporary note

It's hard to write about a war right now. This is just a temporary to say I don't know when my next update will be, or if there will _be _a next update in any reasonable time frame. I do know I update sporadically at best, so I don't think it's too much of an issue. But...yeah. It's difficult to write about revolts and violence and revolution right now, even if the good guys are going to win in the end. I don't think I'd be able to maintain a healthy distance between myself and the story, you know? Anyway. I hope you all are staying safe and doing well.

Peace.

\- Aurelia


End file.
